Sunday, February 27, 2011

{Glazed Turquoise Front Door}

As soon as we moved into our home in November, I knew I wanted to make over our front door. For starters, there was a nice plastic No Soliciting sign "welcoming" all those who entered. Yeah. That found its way to the trash can pretty quickly. Next, I didn't love the color. It was a pale beige-ish yellow that didn't do anything for me. I don't have a decent picture, but you can sort of see the color in this photo...

I wasn't quite sure which direction I wanted to go with the door until I saw this, from Sonya at Beyond the Screen Door.

I know.... gorgeous, right?! While I didn't go quite this bold (yet), I do now have a turquoise door of my very own.

I used True Turquoise paint from Glidden, found at Home Depot, which is a beautiful light turquoise/robin's egg blue. After priming with an oil-based primer, I applied two coats of the paint. Having never worked with oil-based paint before, it was a learning experience. For starters, it goes on kinda sticky and not as smooth as latex paint. Then, it took forever to dry. I realize I painted in January, but considering I painted on a mid-70 degree day, that surprised me. I had to wait almost 24 hours to apply the second coat.

I applied the first coat with a roller brush, but I didn't like the stippled effect it left on the metal door. So the second coat was applied with a brush. I wanted some brush strokes to be able to grab onto some of the glaze later on in the process.

I initially was going to apply a glaze/paint mixture similar to Sonya's method, but then I found a can of Wiping Stain in my garage and decided to use that instead. I used an old rag to apply it to the painted surfaces in long strokes, concentrating more stain around the trim and door patterns to accomplish more patina. I let it dry about 10 minutes, then wiped some of the stain off with a clean rag until I acheived the look I was going for.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out...

I love walking in through my pretty new door... in fact, sometimes I go in that way instead of the garage just so I can look at it again! Care to join me? Come on in!